Transgender

Forum













%expand(%include(D:\http/ads/ads0.html))

Jami Ward



Just Like the Real Thing

By Jami Ward

(I'm irked, and this particular column is kind of a free association for me because of that, so I'm not real sure where it's going to end up. Stick around and we'll both find out.)

I'm more than a little upset by yet another reference in the media to some person who was just convicted of a brutal murder as "the adopted son" of Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so. Even if it had not been a report of something bad, even if the subject had been about a local kid who had saved someone's life, why was it necessary to categorize that young person as "the adopted child"? Even if the media labeled all kids as adopted children or as stepchildren or as birth children, I'd still be upset. I think my strong bias against labeling people has been explored in previous columns, but this issue touches me personally.

For those who do not know, my son is adopted. I've never hidden that fact, but it feels very strange to me to write that down. I don't feel like he's my adopted son; I feel like he's just my son, period. I have had people tell me that I'm a noble person because I adopted a child, but in reality I was being selfish. My spouse and I cannot have children, so to fulfill our own personal wants and desires for offspring, we adopted someone else's child. At a gross level then, what we did was not noble; it was merely satisfying a want. But that's an oversimplification, and in reality, what we did was not just satisfying a want. It was, instead, filling a void in our lives that we knew existed, and that we desperately wanted to fill in order to feel complete.

We first met our son when he was 24 hours old, and immediately fell in love with him. He came to live with us 2 days later and has been with us ever since, which has been approximately 27 months now. We have no plans to ever hide the fact from him that he is adopted, but we also don't plan to make a big deal about it. As I said before, I certainly don't feel like he's my adopted son; I just think of him as my son. I simply cannot imagine loving him any more than I already do, simply because he carried some of my DNA. He, of course, knows us simply as his parents, not his adoptive parents. I know families who have both adopted and birth children, and they assure me that it's the same for them: there is no differentiation in their hearts or minds between the two. So, if the parents don't see them any differently, why does the rest of the world insist on doing so?

Also, in today's world, birth parents are not always the only ones raising children. With the divorce rate as high as it is, with re-marriage as common as it is, stepparents are also quite involved in the upbringing of children that are not theirs by birth. I find it hard to believe, despite the clichés to the contrary, that stepparents are all evil. I know a lot of people who love their spouse's children just as if they were their own. It is not only a possibility, it is an actuality for most second marriages where children are involved. Again, if the parents don't see their children as stepchildren, why should anyone else? The last thing any of us needs is another label to categorize and subdivide us all further.

OK. So now I'm at the end of my adoption rant (and yet another label rant). I was afraid that I wouldn't have a transgender connection here, but I just might have one, after all. It's this: If any of is to truly make it in our self-perceived gender role, we must truly adopt that role as ours. Appearances of masculinity or femininity, like appearances of family, are nothing without the real thing underneath. However, just as a family with birth children can adopt another child without loss of love for any of their original children, we should not totally shun our "original" sex-assigned gender. There are many good masculine and feminine aspects and traits in everyone, and we should strive to balance them within ourselves as we pursue our own gender role and gender presentation.



Back to
TGF's
Home Page